A gesture UI (User Interface) for operating equipment according to body motion and shape (gesture) of a user is employed for various types of equipment in recent years. The gesture UI is often employed for game entertainment equipment, and is recently employed for various types of equipment such as broadcast receivers, PCs (Personal Computers), car navigation systems and information communication terminals.
The gesture UI uses user's gestures for operating equipment. Gestures recognized by the gesture UI include, for example, motions and shapes of a part of the user's body (motions and shapes of a hand, motions and shapes of a finger, etc.) and motions and shapes of the user's entire body. The gesture UI acquires captured image data (image data) of the user through an image capturing device such as a camera, recognizes the user's gesture in multiple frames of frame images (captured image data), and transmits information corresponding to the recognized gesture to the equipment (control object) as a user operation input signal (control signal). In the equipment employing the gesture UI, the operation of the equipment is controlled according to the user's gesture and thus the user can feel excellent operability.
In the description of Patent Reference 1, the start of a motion of the user's hand in a certain direction at a certain speed or higher, continuation of the motion of the user's hand, and stoppage of the motion of the user's hand or switching of the motion of the user's hand to a motion in the opposite direction are detected, and thereafter a process for recognizing the gesture performed by the user (e.g., a motion called a “swipe” of swinging a hand in a certain direction) is started.